■34 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1. 



es, and found wires where the brood-frames 

 had been burned. The thieves pleaded guilty, 

 and were sent to the workhouse for 90 days — 

 a light sentence, but all the justice said he 

 had power to give. Benj. Passage. 



Stark, Mich. 



THE FARMER BEE-KEEPER AND HIGH PRICES. 



It is not the farmer bee-keepers who cut the 

 price here, but it is the big honey-men who 

 ship honey to our large cities, and then our 

 grocer will coolly tell us he can get honey for 

 12 or 15 cents a box. If selling honey for a 

 high price entitles one to have his picture in 

 the bee-journals, then surely we would " take 

 the cake," for we retail at 20 and wholesale at 

 16%. But we don't want our picture put 

 there. J. T. Shedd. 



New Braintree, Mass., Juh- 21. 



SEAI^ING JELLY-GLASSES. 



In putting covers on jelly-glasses last year, 

 some of which did not fit perfectl}- tight, we 

 dipped a small brush in melted beeswax, 

 waxed the edge of the glass, and put the cov- 

 er on at once. This makes it perfectly air- 

 tight. I do not know whether this is general- 

 ly known. J. W. Bannehr. 



Braidentown, Fla. 



REPORTS J^ J^ -J^ 

 ^^DIS CO URA GIIMG 



poorest honey season. 



This has been one of the poorest honey 

 seasons ever known in Butler Co. Bees made 

 some section honey the first part of the season, 

 but it was of such a qualit}' that it was not fit 

 to eat. Bees are busy now on buckwheat, 

 which seems to be full of honey, but it will 

 keep them busy to fill up below for winter. 

 The. supplies I bought of you are all right 

 every way, and give my customers the best of 

 satisfaction. I shall buy all my supplies of 

 you another season. J. A. McGowAN. 



Prospect, Pa., Aug. 26. 



Honey season closed a month or more ago. 

 Crop very light in quantity; very dark in col- 

 or, and poor in quality in this section. Bees 

 are rather short of stores, but we have always 

 had a sufficient flow from fall flowers, asters, 

 etc., to give supplies for winter, and hope for 

 the same this season. Last year 8 colonies, 

 spring count, gave 400 lbs. comb honey; 50 

 extracted; this season, 9 colonies, spring 

 count, in good condition, about 50 lbs. comb. 



H. P. JOSLIN. 



Ben Avon, Pa., Aug. 25. 



I have 78 hives of bees, but I shall not har- 

 vest 300 lbs. of comb honey. It is the worst 

 year in ten. The failure is widespread in this 

 section this year. R. A. Whitfield. 



Westville, Miss., Sept. 2. 



A GOOD honey-flow IN FLORIDA. 



Following my annual custom for many years 

 past, I herewith send an approximate report 

 of the honey crop of this section of Florida. 

 I had been counting our crop as a rather poor 

 one until I saw Query No. 81 in the Am. Bee 

 Journal, and from the replies to it learned 

 that I have secured over 2-3 times the average 

 for the past 25 years, of the 21 reporters from 

 all over the country who replied as to extract- 

 ed honey. Leaving out one report from Cali- 

 fornia, one from Canada, and one from Flori- 

 da, it is almost exactly three times the aver- 

 age ; so I have concluded to be satisfied, even 

 if my crop of 148 lbs., with plenty left in the 

 hive for winter, does look small beside one of 

 353 lbs., and individual yields of 550 to 600 

 lbs. still fresh in my memory. Nor do I for- 

 get that last season showed the one total fail- 

 ure that I have ever known here. 



The season opened up with bees in poor 

 condition, as a rule, and some feeding had to 

 be done to prevent starvation. I fed about 

 1000 lbs. of honey to stimulate the queens and 

 ward off famine in the hives. Outside of 

 mangrove, which is but slowly recovering 

 from the effects of the great freezes of three 

 years ago, and for the second time in my ex- 

 perience gave almost no honey in the bloom 

 that it did have, the honey prospects seemed 

 good. A little later we began to suffer from 

 the most severe drouth I have ever known 

 here, and the woods were burned over until it 

 seemed as though nothing but cabbage-pal- 

 metto (like mangrove, not subject to injury 

 by fire, drouth, or flood) could be looked to 

 for a crop. The amount of the saw-palmetto 

 crop was, therefore, a happy surprise to us, 

 and the cabbage-palmetto gave its average 

 yield. The extreme dryness of the air all the 

 season has caused our honey to be of extra 

 heavy body and fine quality. It was never 

 better. The general average in this vicinity is 

 a little below my own, and the number of col- 

 onies kept is greatly reduced since the freezes 

 and foul brood hit us, so the aggregate is far 

 below what it used to be during the decade 

 ending with 1894. The promise for a fall 

 crop of surplus is unusually good at this time. 

 Foul brood has been thoroughly stamped out, 

 so with a few favorable seasons we may hope 

 soon to get back to our old figures again. 

 Some of the bee-keepers are holding their 

 crop for higher prices, expected later in the 

 season, but are filling the orders that come to 

 them from northern apiarists, at present rates. 



Hawks Park, Fla., Sept. 3. W. S. HarT. 



T. J. C, III. — The best way to exterminate 

 weeds or grass is to apply a sprinkling of salt 

 around the place where you wish it killed out. 

 It does not usually pay to tr}' to kill out the 

 grass and weeds except in front of the en- 

 trance to the hives. 



